Friday, February 15, 2013

Read.East.Listen: Heart strings

Read: I respect a cranky artist, which is at least how songwriter Peter Case initially comes off in his book "Epistolary Rex." Kwame's is a big Peter Case fan so we were happy to get a seat at Case's recent KC Turner-produced house concert in SF last weekend. Case didn't play my favorite of his tunes, "Two Angels," but he nonetheless pulled on heart strings with a highly literate, sharply honest, blues-inflected set. He was selling his book as well as his CDs after the show, so we went home with the aforementioned title. The tome, actually a correspondence with David Ensminger, is as tell-it-like-I-see-it as Case's songs and performance persona, part poetry, part rant.
PC: "Fear is our teacher, our spiritual leader. Dishonor and death our traveling companions. Wise up America! Begin to leave your fears behind, okay? You can start the process with little ones: tell somebody what you really think!"Eat: Lots of goodies on the La Mesa Whole Family Fare blog, including this simple Avocado Smoothie. Raw, vegan, yumListen: Paste Magazine offered a Valentine's sampler on NoiseTrade that's Half Love Songs/Half Anti-love Songs. I especially liked the last track by Samantha Crain, "Never Going Back"